Mark Solms is a clinical neuropsychologist, neuroscientist and psychoanalyst. In this wide-ranging conversation Marks talks about his career path and the influence of a brain injury in family member when Mark was a child. Mark talks about Freud's pre-psychoanalytic work as a neuroscientist and neurologist and his own ongoing retranslation of Freud's neuroscientific writing. We discuss Mark's discovery of the brain lesions that supress dreams (not those relating to REM sleep) and how this lead to his interest in the affective rather than cognitive nature of consciousness. We discuss the work of Panksepp and Damasio and Mark outlines the computational neuroscience model and the way Karl Friston is applying this before mapping all this on Freud's original model of mind.
Participants:
Mark Solms, Professor, Department of Neuropsychology, University of Capetown, SA. https://neuroscience.uct.ac.za/contacts/mark-solms
Ken Barrett, visual artist, writer and retired neuropsychiatrist: http://www.kenbarrettstudio.co.uk
Mark's book 'The Hidden Spring': https://profilebooks.com/work/the-hidden-spring/
Opening and closing music: Prelude to the opera Brainland, composed by Stephen Brown.
Brainland the opera website: www.brainlandtheopera.co.uk
Sketch by KB.
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